Original news and analysis on international IP policy
Member governments will discuss the development dimension of the World Intellectual Property Organization next week, looking in particular at how the United Nations organisation is implementing the recommendations of its Development Agenda in its activities.
CAPE TOWN - Pharmaceutical patents and access to medicines was the focus of an animated panel discussion by experts offering divergent views on the topic at intellectual property group FICPI’s 2015 World Congress, currently underway in Cape Town, South Africa.
The World Health Organization today issued a call for disclosure of results from clinical trials for medical products, no matter what the results of the trials were. And a variety of events and publications are addressing medicines access today.
Farmers' rights are enshrined in the international plant treaty. However, their implementation is an ongoing issue, which the plant treaty is seeking to address by looking at the interrelation that might exist with other international instruments. Separately, civil society is asserting that the World Intellectual Property Organization favours the International Union for the Protection of New Varieties of Plants (UPOV) in its technical assistance. But the WIPO Director General countered that this is decidedly not the case.
Intellectual property stimulates creativity but at the same time holds back innovation, speakers said at a recent event on open innovation and alternative business models. The roundtable looked a range of models, such as open source and open data, and their advantages, to “all rights reserved” protection.
The IDA Foundation, a worldwide supplier of essential medicines to low-and medium income countries, has backed the request by least-developed countries to extend a waiver that allows them to forfeit the obligations to protect intellectual property on pharmaceutical products. UNITAID, the UN-related drug purchasing mechanism, also issued a statement in support of the extension. The request is expected to be discussed at the World Trade Organization in June.
This year is an auspicious moment for the World Trade Organization and the multilateral trading system, WTO Director General Roberto Azevêdo told journalists today. In particular, he said, the WTO, after a hiatus last year, is implementing the results of the 2013 Bali agreement on trade facilitation and finalising work on the work programme to conclude the Doha Round of trade liberalisation negotiations.
The US got its way. The Trans-Pacific Partnership agreement (TPP) will require all member nations to have a minimum copyright term of life plus 70 years. As a result, Japan, Canada, New Zealand, and three other nations will have to increase the duration of copyright by 20 years. This copyright term extension will benefit powerful interests in the US, but will hurt consumers and creators in six other nations that are part of the TPP.
Today, the World Intellectual Property Organization released the 2014 numbers of filings for its systems for patents, trademarks, and industrial designs, which form the basis of the revenue of the UN organisation. Filings under the three systems grew in 2014, with a notable presence of telecom companies in patent filing activity. Except for China, top filers in the three systems are developed countries. Also noted was that so far, the significant increase in internet domain names has only led to a slight rise in new domain dispute cases.
The new book, “The ACTA and the Plurilateral Enforcement Agenda,” offers an insightful read on the highly debated Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement (ACTA), an effort to raise intellectual property protection that was met with opposition by many countries and was subject to intense scrutiny from non-state actors, including industry, civil society and academics.
WARSAW - In a move towards increased regional cooperation in the field of intellectual property, Poland, Hungary, Slovakia and the Czech Republic have signed an agreement to set up the Visegrad Patent Institute (VPI). And representatives of the parties to the agreement say that their ambitions reach further, towards ensuring the recently-established body becomes a regional hub for patent cooperation in Central-Eastern Europe.
On 5 March, the International Centre for Trade and Sustainable Development (ICTSD) in collaboration with Oxford University’s Global Economic Governance Programme (GEG) hosted an event in Geneva to discuss challenges and issues in intellectual property governance.